We have looked at the budget through the lens of Making Music members, and there are a few points to draw to your attention. Orchestra Tax...
A government consultation open at the moment looks at making the Ebacc – which does not include arts subjects – compulsory for schools. Here’s what you can do to help protect arts subjects.
The Department for Education have announced plans to make a new English Baccalaureate (EBacc) a headline league table for schools, and give it a bigger role in Ofsted inspections; the Government expect at least 90% of pupils to take it. This would make it all but compulsory for many students.
The EBacc requires pupils to study a minimum of seven GCSEs, but includes no creative subjects; it risks forcing art, dance, design, drama and music and other creative subjects out of schools.
The time to act is now because there is a government consultation open on this until the end of January. The campaign fought in 2010 is having to be fought all over again, and it’s much harder a second time, so do please support it. There will be more information and template responses in January, but right this minute you can help the campaign to save creativity in schools by:
- Reading more on the background and the key messages of the campaign
- Signing the petition: It currently has 20,000 signatories, aiming for 40,000 by early January!
- Asking everyone you know to sign the petition: pass the link to the campaign website on to your contacts in your group, share it on Facebook, tweet it to your followers http://www.baccforthefuture.com
‘We know that the 170,000+ individuals – singers and players – who make up our membership...are passionate about the benefits that have accrued to them personally, to their working lives and to their communities through their ability to engage with music.
This ability is a gift most of them received during their time in compulsory full-time education. Our members are therefore dismayed that access to music and its manifold benefits – just as they are increasingly proven by numerous studies – is being denied to the next generation due to the narrow focus of the proposed EBacc.’
Barbara Eifler - Executive Director, Making Music
